A financial institution accountholder typically uses one or more channels to access funds that the accountholder maintains in a financial institution account. The channels may include a brick-and-mortar banking institution customer service office, a telephone-based banking institution customer service agency, a self-service device (such as an automated teller machine (“ATM”)) and an on-line banking portal. The accountholder may interact with the on-line banking portal via a fixed communication device or a mobile communication device.
The banking institution (hereinafter, “bank”) may typically require that a customer present to the bank information authenticating the identification of the customer as the accountholder before the bank grants the customer access to the account. The bank may require that the customer present the authentication information through the one or more channels.
Exemplary identity-authentication information may include: a physical article of documentation that the customer possesses (e.g., an ATM card or photograph-bearing identification, such as a driver's license); a knowledge-item that the customer knows (e.g., a personal identification number (“PIN”) or a correct answer to an accountholder-chosen security question); and a biometric feature of the customer (e.g., a handprint or DNA). A typical granting of access to the account may include the customer confirming his/her being the accountholder by proffering the physical article of documentation (e.g., an ATM card) and also presenting the knowledge-item (e.g., a PIN).
There are circumstances under which an accountholder may not be in possession of any physical article of identity-authentication. Such circumstances may include calamitous events affecting primarily the accountholder, such as being the victim of pickpocketing, home-burglary or a house-fire. Without the physical article of identity-authentication, the accountholder's ability to access his/her account may be reduced, but may not be eliminated.
Under such circumstances, the accountholder may present to the bank alternate identity-authentication information, such as the accountholder's PIN and answers to account security questions. The accountholder may present the person of the accountholder to the bank for biometric readings. PINs, answers to security questions, and biometric readings may be checked against a bank database of accountholder information. Given a sufficient number of confirming matches of the customer's alternate identity-authentication information with bank database accountholder information, the bank may grant the client access to the account in the absence of client-borne physical identity-authentication documentation. On the basis of such alternate identity-authentication information confirmation, the bank may reissue to the accountholder an article of identity-authentication documentation, such as an ATM or bank credit card.
However, there are circumstances under which the bank customer without physical identity-authentication documentation may have difficulty making use of alternate identity-authentication information to gain access to his/her account. Such circumstances include a widespread calamity that severely impacts the accountholder's locale, impacting the accountholder as well as locale-based brick-and-mortar banks, among other locale-associated individuals and institutions impacted. Extreme environmental conditions (e.g., earthquakes, tsunamis, gale-force winds, blizzards, and flooding) and man-made disasters (e.g., devastating terrorist attacks and accidental catastrophes) may result in a banking customer having neither physical identity-authentication documentation nor functional locale-based banks at which to present identity-authentication information. Such widespread calamities may also severely impair infrastructure that would otherwise enable an accountholder to contact the bank via transportation means and/or via communication devices; such impairment of infrastructure may drastically reduce or effectively eliminate access to banking channels. The customer may be cut off from banking services both inside and outside the locale of the calamity.
Impairment of transportation infrastructure and/or of communications infrastructure in the wake of events such as regional disasters may be detrimental to the economy and welfare of persons and institutions of the locale. Such impairment of infrastructure within the region may also hamper coordination and implementation of disaster-relief efforts of community groups and of local governments and law-enforcement, and of larger-scale efforts such as those of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (“FEMA”) and the Red Cross.
It would be desirable, therefore, to provide apparatus and methods for granting customers access to their accounts under circumstances such as disasters that may dispossess the customers of physical identity-authenticating documentation and/or that may disrupt usual banking operations. It would also be desirable to have such granting include the opening of new accounts by customers.
It would also be desirable, therefore, to provide to those impacted by impairment of locale infrastructure in the wake of such disasters—accountholders, the general public and institutions—apparatus and methods that facilitate electronic communication and information-exchange. It would also be desirable to have such electronic communication and information-exchange serve to support impacted locale-business.
It would also be desirable, therefore, to provide apparatus and methods that facilitate electronic communication and information-exchange to support locale disaster-relief efforts of locale-based groups and of groups such as FEMA and the Red Cross.